Although I cannot argue with the feelings expressed here I'm afraid that some people posting here are speaking from a moral rather than from a legal standpoint.

This serves to unnecessarily scare those of us who downloaded by accident and erased. If you fit into this category quit worrying. The authorities are concentrating on uploaders. In the lower left hand of LimeWires screen is a option to view uploadable files. If these are free of CP then you are free to go about your business.

its according to who you downed said file from....if you are a truly 'innocent' person then even if you downed it from the 'law' they will be able to tell after they observe what you are doing (packet sniffing, etc) after the 'incident'...

__________________


So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

OK... Normally I try to avoid this thread, but...

First, have you folks noticed how many people come in here... I mean HERE, only to this thread, and post 2-3 times and then depart ?
What's that all about ?

re: seeyavo ... All these 'deleted' posts ?
Hi, Arne ! Perhaps you have been trying to advise this person via PMs ?
I am certainly not going to quote anything from those deleted posts but the point of concern is clear...

I should also state that I have not read every single post in this ever-growing thread, but there does seem to be a recurrent theme regarding

cleaning data storage devices.

There have been many discussions, arguments and even 'fights' here in GF regarding this topic.
Some members have made efforts to educate others as to the simple and irrefutable realities about data removal.
Most people seem to be unable to either understand and/or believe the facts about data retention in storage media.

The simple truth is that it is an absolute impossibilty to delete data to such an extent that it cannot be recovered.
(The ONLY exception to this is to perform an absolute physical destruction of the storage media. This, of course, is not a form of 'deletion'... It is physical destruction... Physical destruction to the extent that the discs are destroyed, practically to ashes. I am not being dramatic here.)

There exists no process and/or device that will 'securely delete' data from any existing data storage media.

There has been much confusion as to various claims, primarily for commercial gain, made by numerous application vendors as to the efficacy of this or that 'Cleaning Program' and/or variations on the 'Bulk-Eraser' DeGaussing devices.
Not one single claim from ANY of them is true.

You can place an electro-magnet, used normally for collecting huge pieces of ferrous material in scrap-yards, directly over an HDD for hours upon hours... Nada... Sure, your computer may not be able to read the data but there are many individuals who would be able to treat it as almost a normal working drive.
They work inside one room that costs more than many mansions.
I hear many say, "Yes, but these processes cost a fortune and there is no way that little me and whatever I would prefer to have hidden is going to be worth the investigation charges."
Untrue.
Yes, most magnetic storage material that has been severely damaged by fire or corrosive elements can be very time consuming and expensive to recover. But, it is incredible just how much can be recovered with time and labour. True, these really serious recovery jobs are mainly done by only one company in Germany, normally for insurance claim purposes or corporate databases, and it costs large amounts of money.
But, for 'you little folks' there are normally several recovery service companies competing for business in most mid-size to large cities.
In other words, "No big deal."

You can run any one of the many, many applications available with a DOD 5220.22M scan (As many times as you like).
So-Called NSA multi-pass...
Or, Gutmann, 10,000 passes ! Hey, Why Not ?
The above are just a few of the more common and popular buzz-word type processes that are freely available.
Nada.

Defragmentation only increase the probability that a 'deleted' file will be overwritten by a later file sooner rather than randomly later.
So what ?
The old data is still there, even after an overwrite... After 1,000 overwrites !
10,000 !

System Erasers ?
"Replace All Free Space With Zeroes"
Sounds like the magic bullet, eh ?
It's nonsense and in no way makes ANY historical data unrecoverable.


So, as this thread has, to date, been remarkably well 'controlled', may I suggest that the actual original intent of this thread be pursued and that there be no more time, effort and/or polemics wasted on the so-called pros and cons of data destruction ?

If you have stored data, of whatever nature, that you wish to be made unavailable to anyone then your only choice is the total destruction of the storage media and ALL of its storage material components.
This does NOT mean throwing it in water or driving over it with a car or a steamroller or whatever.
It means the physical, i.e. mechanical destruction of the discs followed by fire. Yes, even fragments of 'mechanically destroyed' discs can be used for data recovery.


btw... Be sure to check out the on-going stats regarding the internet...
What are the primary commercial enterprises 'benefiting' from the internet ?

On-Line Gambling

followed by

Porn


"What's new, daddie ?"

@ursula: I normally don't advise anyone by PM, and I didn't do it here. If I write something I want it to stick, so I won't have to write it again

I wanted to retrieve data from an old disk once and sent it to a company. They took it, checked it, then sent it back after I told them that the data isn't worth >400€ - that would have been the price for clean-room data retrieval.

Besides: Do you know the name of the german company who does the really heavy work? Would be interesting to read up a bit about them.

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I'm still skeptical. Ursula are you saying that if I store a document with only the letter "a" in it and write over it with random letters other than "a" thousands of time that someone somewhere can tell me what that original letter was?

And that given time and money that person can pull out enough information to determine a file was porn and specifically child porn?

Sorry, don't buy it. Governments with billions of dollars to spend will recycle hard drives after overwriting. With that kind of money incineration would be the avenue of choice.

Please give us a reference to your information.

PS: Most of the returning people I see here are either asking how to get rid of it or telling people how to get rid of it.

I suggest you buy it d00d....

read through this thread and you will notice is used the metaphor of cross talk on a vinyl record....

and I also stated that our (US) military planes have algorithms for both deletion and physical destruction of drives...

finally...Guttman recently admitted that his algorithm for data overwritting is not totally fool proof...

as Urs has stated, the only secure way to delete the data is to physically destroy the HDD...and I do mean destroy...completely...tiny, tiny, little pieces....

__________________


So Long and Thanks for All the Files
_____________________________________________

Beware of the big 3 insurance companies in Texas! Read your policies carefully (maybe you'll need a lawyer) Allstate, Farmers & State Farm are overextended and their 'coverage' is worthless...a true waste of your money Read This

I understand. If you'll notice, my post was a response to someone who stated they did it on purpose, not by accident. The thing is, we have a sheriff a county over that is basically wiping the floor with people for this crime over and over, it seems like every few months there is a new story in the paper with 20 or so guys in deep doo-doo and I can't see how he differentiates between uploaders or downloaders, he looks for anyone and everyone that he can catch with evidence. So when I read this thread and all these guys, I get a little worried for them, not judgemental. I am worried that for such a dumb, thoughtless act they could face serious consequences. So, please excuse my prostelytizing, it's really only meant to be a danger flag. And I don't to plan to wave it again.

Thank's for that Virtualcoder. Can you give us a link to the newspaper? If 20 guys in one county are getting arrested a month I'm wondering why its not being done everywhere. Maybe it soon will be. But as of now there is nothing going on in the Los Angeles area.

Thanks for that Peerless. Buy what? What is d00d (d zero zero d?)? Can the "a" in my example be discovered?

Well, I said every couple of months. But probably every six months is more accurate. It's Polk county, FL and we hear about it in Orange county, FL (Orlando) next door. The last article may be dead on the local sites but I found the abc news article on it. Reading it is going to freak people out but I will post it. The thing about it is that he catches like 20 people in ONE county. What the f are these guys thinking? Some of those old guys are truly sickening, but I can't help but wonder about the young guys, one of the ones here is only 17. Was he just being dumb? Would this have been a problem in a few years after a girlfriend or two? His life and his familys life is basically destroyed. I can't find the article, but the sting before this one of the guys actually killed himself. The idea of the pictures put a knot in my stomach, but so does the idea of a 17 yo old boy facing that kind of personal destruction for being stupid. Anyway, here is a link.

ABC News: The Many Faces of Child Porn Suspects

I am sure they is working on another one as we type.